Love A&W Root Beer But Can’t Understand Why It’s So Flat

For those of us who were kids back in the 70s and living in the Klang Valley, we’d have visited A&W at Padang Timur at least once a year and for those who lived nearby, perhaps it was their hang-out. After all, there were no big malls and hardly any other fast food chains. I remember periodic visits with my uncle and cousin, my uncle’s son was a few years younger than me and we’d have our occasional treat there. I remember the joy of ordering the fizzy root beer, sometimes we would sit in the car and other times we would go into the outlet. It was never uncomfortably hot in the car those days, somehow it felt very American to be having our meal in the car with the tray of food attached to the car door. Many wonderful memories were created there for a lot of adults my age.

I hadn’t been to A&W for years but yesterday afternoon, I happened to be in the area and popped in for a root beer. There was no queue and the root beer came straight from the tap into the all too familiar mug but straightaway I could tell the drink had lost its fizz. It was disappointingly flat. What is annoying is that prices have increased a lot and this mug of root beer without ice cream costs RM3.55 and yet I got no joy out of every sip. It was like drinking a cordial. I felt rather crestfallen and got me wondering why the quality is like that now. Bring back the good old days, they were so much better.